


Midsummer Midnight

by TK_29



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: F/M, Pre-Undertale, Pre-War, Young Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-05
Updated: 2019-08-05
Packaged: 2020-08-09 22:50:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,608
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20125141
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TK_29/pseuds/TK_29
Summary: A long, long time ago, on a date of festivities, two youngling boss monsters go on their day-to-day lives. A Prince on a trek to parts unknown, and an apprentice sorcerer on a quest of scientific discovery. All the while, their thoughts are struck by their shared affection for one another. They shall meet at midsummer's midnight.





	Midsummer Midnight

**Author's Note:**

> I am aware of typos and certain inadequacies along the story both in terms of structuring and repetition. I apologize for these but I've not the time to fix them. If you do find them please point them out discreetly and I'll try to address them. Thank you for reading!

Dawn’s first light had not yet crept through the flapping fabric that gave entrance to the tent, yet the young creature’s nostrils quivered with the wafting scent of dew and mountain breeze. In a mixture of discontent protest and blissful lethargy he incousciously tucked the rough woolen sheets over his head to remain embedded in the world of ideas and subconscious thoughts. He was, after all, a dreamer. Outside, a taller, much more imponent creature stood watch over a small grey boulder, overlooking a winding river valley, the delta unfolding beyond sight, hidden by that ethereal sea fog.

He breathes in. And though the sun was not yet over the horizon he knew exactly what time it was and how long it would be before sundown, he knew exactly how many paces were to be walked and from whence he could expect dangers or surprises. He breathes out. Billowing from the far horizons, behind snow-capped rocks, is a dark opaque column of smoke, that twirls in the high winds and blends into soft unsuspecting clouds. He breathes in. Though his thoughts are only his own, one could see in his shut eyes the clairvoyance of a wizard, masked behind the physique of a warrior-saint. He breathes out.

And through every breath, as quiet as they are, the slumbering small creature’s attention and senses become more and more attuned to the world around him, as the wind picks up and the leaves rustle against the canvas-like fabric of the tent. Nevertheless, the young one still clings to his sleep, tumbling inside of his sleeping sack under muffled grumbles. All the while, the breathing seems to come ever so closer to his ears, in and out, in and out, until a basso profondo-esque voice whispers monotonically:

“Must you slumber any longer mine child?” to which the small critter replied:

“Father, my night has been restless. Give me, please, only one more turn of the hourglass.”

“We must leave forthright if we are to be back for sundown’s supper.”

“I care not for supper now! Let me rest!”

This retort came unresponded at first, followed only, once more, by the breathing of the monster standing guard.

“Asgore Dreemurr. If thou are to see Toriel tonight, I ask of you. Get up.”

Lo and behold, like strumming the correct chords on a basilet to bring a court to attention, it was not half the turn of an hourglass and the small, white-furred critter stood beside his larger counterpart. The latter, nearly 8 feet tall beast finally opened his eyes, exhaling once more, running his calloused, furred hands through the small golden mane of his son with fatherly tenderness. And though lips betrayed not a smile, his happiness shone, though with an air of foreboding, on his amber eyes.  
“I am here, what else do you need from me father?”

“The day shall be long, my son. Thou rememberest what remains ahead on our trail?”

And like an emotionless, engraved recital Asgore replied:

“We will cross the Yukon below and move yonder to the marsh, where we will trade with the humans and return to our river outpost, from thence we will sail back to our Kingdom’s fortress and celebrate the midsummer Supper.”

Once again, the father ruffled his son’s juvenile mane, this time with noticeably more gusto.

“Thou shalt make a King of Kings one day.”

“Yes, father…” he scoffed, under his breath.

Following this exchange, Asgore immediately returned to the tent to gather his belongings and trinkets, quickly stuffing all of it rather carelessly into his oversized leather ruck, annoyance overbearing him more than any sense of duty or adventure. It was the third day of this trek, and thus far the most excitement he was able to derive out of this drawn-out royalty chore was the seemingly incomprehensible “holy” ramblings of his father. For someone in his position, Asgore thought, the King of Monsters was pronouncedly uninteresting. Though in truth, he did feel his soul intrinsically connected to that of his progenitor, and with that came the love of a son for his father, ultimately the father of all fathers, the head of Royalty of his great kind. But by goodness was he a complete and utter bore.

In the midst of this train of thought he was stopped suddenly by the images in his dreams, he saw lights of all possible colors, heard gnashing of teeth, quiet whimpers and deafening roars, and though he could not discern out of one particular shape out of the many that flashed relentlessly in his sleep, he could make out two sides in this metaphysical conflict. He wondered who’d won in the end, but he couldn’t remember. For a Dreemurr, and a dreamer, he wasn’t too well versed in keeping accurate recollections of such.

Soon enough his ruck and tent were packed and loaded onto his back, and, almost as an afterthought, and truly only after a slight glare from his father, he fetched his Prince’s crown and placed it atop his forehead, the silver metal fitting neatly onto the front of his juvenile horns and above the coif, as the first rays of sunlight bounced off of it.

“Let us depart then, my son.” the basso voice called out.

“Onwards.” he replied, before looking down at the Yukon river and the bright orange fireball over the horizon, longing for those beautiful crimson roses and their fragrant smell. He clutched at the snail shell that hung from his belt beneath his robes, next to his ritual crystals and spell texts, and whispered her name.

\- - -

Far from there, some fifty thousand paces down the winding river, the flags fluttered in the now late morning wind, their ruffle and tumble dance hypnotizing the young monsters that meandered the castle built symbiotically with the rocky mountainside. Around the moat, their striped linens darted from one side to the other, crossing the roads, into yards, up roofs and down alleys. “I hear the humans can hurt you just by looking at you!”; “Asgore is MY best friend, he’ll tell me all about the humans!”;”No he’s MY best friend!”; “Do you think they have horns and shoot fire too?”; “If I catch you, I’ll tell the King you said he smells!” the voices said, running from one side to the other, like little murders of ill-mannered ravens.

In spite of this ruckus, off on a beaten path,shrouded by tall grass and under a large maple tree was one singular figure, a petite and innocent white tuft of fur, resting under the shadow of the wide leaves. As it laid there, on the soft, pale yellow dirt, all was quiet, save for the croaking of the frogs on the small bog that lay in front, and an incessant scribbling. Once every half or third spin of the hourglass the scribbling would cease, the figure would look up, then down, and the scribbling would continue, with new found intensity and vigor.

If one were to peek at the notes furiously written on the pages of the washed-out bundle of parchments contained within the hands of that tiny monster one could clearly make out crude anatomical sketches, question marks and notes surrounding several of the subject’s appendages, arrows pointing in several seemingly nonsensical directions. 

“I have just now, on this quaint midsummer morning, noted the most exceptional of all peculiarities about these little green monsters that live in the bog! Not only do they live their entire early lives under the mantle of this water, only to then migrate to the earth and marsh surrounding it, but they grow legs and “arms” too! Surely this is a scientific discovery of epic proportions, it is for this reason that I - Toriel The Wise - will go down in monster history as one of the greats! After I transmit this information to the Prince, he will most certainly make me his-”

Her writing was cut short, unfortunately, by the characteristic yelling of her grandmother, no doubt furious she had, once again, shied away from her studies of obsolete arcane magick to pursue more practical examples of the intriguing world that surrounded her. In the sudden rush to pick herself off the ground and beat the dirt off her elbows, dress and floppy ears, she unwillingly dropped the one particular leaf of parchment she’d been working on, watching in paralyzed horror as it drifted in the wind towards the middle of the swampy bog beyond.

“NO!” She screamed, grasping the remaining pages close to her chest as the stray text effortlessly glided closer and closer to the middle of the water. “Toriel! What art thou doing there? Thou ought to be studying in thine chambers, not daydreaming!” She heard the voice rant complain from right behind her shoulder, though she cared not for the words being spoken, that was THE text! She could not under any circumstances lose it! It would be the end of her love to Asgore. She could hear his words plainly in her head “I cannot believe it Toriel! You let your sacred studies escape your grasp with such ease and lack of care! How could you possibly be my Queen?”

“...better start listening to mine words now, young lady! Art thou even listening?” the voice continued, “Hello?” 

“Grandmother Tamara the Wise, please hold onto mine scripts!” Toriel instinctively said, shoving the somewhat hefty and disorganized bundle of papers onto the old monsters bosom, startling the incredulous and, honestly dismayed, old caprine-looking creature. And so, without a care for anything else other than that precise moment to seize, Toriel dashed away and leapt into the bog, splashing down ungraciously on some lilypads blocking her path, scattering any and all of her “little green monsters” that there rested.

It was only at the moment she found herself completely underwater and unable to see that she considered that, perhaps, her judgement then might have been ever so slightly precarious, emerging from the murky waters she was still unable to see, now due to the scruffy white fur covering her rose-colored eyes. 

“TO-RI-EL!”

“Just a moment oh Grandmother Tamara the Wise, I will be with thou forthright!” Swimming haphazardly in no particular direction she was unable to locate the holiest of parchments, as hard as she looked the text seemed to elude her, as if by some strange spell! In what seemed like a never-ending eternity she scoured every possible inch of the water, going as far as tapping her toes on the shallower ends of the pond in a vain attempt to retrieve the paper in the possibility it’d sunk (though, being a Wise as she was, she knew this was impossible but, oh well, better safe than sorry).

“Grandmother, please assist me! Where art the script I must recover! I beg you!” She said, the fur once more blocking her eyes. Curse this damned fur! I cannot wait ‘till I am of age and can trim my fur to whichever liking I prefer, I’ll have no fur! Will Asgore like me that way? Oh dearness me will he like it? Still no reply from her Grandmother, perhaps she had simply abandoned her and left the remaining text to waft in the wind too, that thought terrified Toriel to a degree she did not think possible before. “Please Grandmother, where is it?!”

“Gaze for thyself.” the coarse voice sternly replied.

And so, directing her head towards whence the voice was, she removed the fur from her eyes, for the fifth damned time, and saw none other than THE text on the hands of her plump old tutor. The color of the octopus ink dripping from the edges and bottom of the paper, whilst the remaining leaves were snuggly rolled up and tucked under her armpit. 

Sheepishly, Toriel “swam” her way back to the bank, awkwardly getting up from the water. Though the young caprine monster cared not one iota for her appearance at that moment, it really was a sad sight. Leaves and slob stuck to her feet and hands, droopy ears sogged beyond belief and the dress, oh that poor dress, sewn out of the most intricate purple silk, with golden reliefs and dazzling pearls on her shoulders… Well, that was before she decided to go bog hunting, now it looked no different than a peasant’s burlap sack.

She just stood there, unmoving, looking at the now fading words on the paper, her tutor’s glare staring down at her. She held her hands together like any child would after a naughty episode such as this, finally swallowing her pride and conjuring up the courage to say a word.

“H-How did you get it, g-grandmother?”

“I shifted the flow of the water under thine very nose, young lady. This parchment came to me almost effortlessly. If thou remembered thine magick training, this affair would have been over before it ever began.”

“Well! I do not care for water bending regardless! Fire bending is more elegant!” She replied, defiantly, incredulous her own tutor could be capable of such a nefarious jape.

“Go inside forthright. Thou art grounded.”

“W-What?”

“Thou heard mine words, no midsummer supper for thyself, young lady. Not until thou hast learned some manners.”

Those words struck her like a dagger through the chest. No matter missing the supper itself, she’d had enough of the beetroot soup, Turkey and bread, but not attending meant that she had no hopes of delivering this text to Asgore, her very own Prince. How could she possibly win his heart without something as high value as her own writings and observations? How would she explain to her love that on the liveliest and most festive night of the year she’d been locked away for ill-mannered behaviour and such? He surely would not believe it! It’d be the truest sign of lack of love for him! It was over.

By the time she ran back to her house and entered her chambers she’d already begun bawling, certainty that her most meaningful moment had slipped through her grasp, and the future was no more. She cried for hours and hours, the wetness of her fur and dress paling in comparison to the rivers wept by her. “Oh Asgore… How could I? Thou shall never hear me say those words I yearn to say so desperately…”  
\- - -

“Mine son, hath I told of the story of the ant and the cricket?”

“Yes, father, I have.”

“Well then, thou shall hear it once more. Once, there lived a...”

Through the winding trails past the Yukon and up the mountains, Asgore and his father had striden for over ten-thousand paces. The last few hours have been nothing but the same old stories repeated ad nauseum to the ears of the young prince. Fables of honor, mercy, gratitude and love, again and again his father would call back on these stories for, what seemed to Asgore, no good discernable reason. Stories he’d heard so many times he could tell them backwards, upside down, out of order and possibly even in another language.

His ruck weighed heavy on his back, and his feet felt calloused from the rough pebbles he occasionally came across. Bags started to weigh under his eyes, the knick-knacks on his belt jingled with every pace to an unbearable rhythm, and his crown chaffed the base of his horns.

It was merely a matter of time until he broke into a cold sweat and collapsed out of exhaustion, and for no good reason too! He started to wonder if this had all been some sort of practical joke, some way to “knock some sense” into him, so to speak. At this point he doubted humans even existed, and if they did, he definitely hated them. Specifically for making him trek all the way up this stupid mountain, listening to some damn yapping about an ant and a cricket, for the twelvth time.

“...and thus, he perished, having not anything for himself that winter.”

“Yes, father.”

“Does thou like that fable?”

“As a matter of fact, no. I do not.”

And though the King chuckled in amusement at his progeny, his real attention lay elsewhere, unsuspecting to his child, with every beat of his heart and cycle of his lungs he scanned the horizon, earth and heavens. On every crevice he looked for a hidden spear, dagger, arrow or tomahawk. He knew play and well that although the core of the human leadership held no quarrel with his kind, the less delicate highwaymen and brigands might hold differing opinions.

Though royalty in its fullest form, both had taken less attention-grabbing garbs for this very reason. The King’s plated and engraved silver armor, as well as his son’s smaller counterpart, had both been replaced with the less conspicuous plated leather armor and leather jerkin, respectively. At best, they would resemble mere lower nobility trekking in parts unknown, at worst, simpletons who did not know better. However, even in simplicity, the two monsters did not yield to adorning their crowns, mostly out of ritual and tradition.

To the young, inexperienced monster, this strategy seemed foolish beyond conception, what possible advantage could they hope to achieve by seeming weaker? If anything, it’d act as a stimulant for their would-be assailants, once again, he was bewildered by his father’s seeming incoherence. And that was, perhaps, the trick of the light that he’d hope to achieve on any unsuspecting lowlife that might interfere. The King still had what much to teach to the Prince.

Admittedly, however, the trek had been longer than anticipated, his clairvoyance had not been thorough enough, the path was several thousand more paces than he’d anticipated, the snow had not yet melted under the new thinly overcast sky. Against his best wishes, age had begun to take it’s irreversible toll on his body, his soul had begun the one way trip towards his son’s, and that, above all else, was the one real reason he needed to teach Asgore what he had to learn today, the first few steps to become the next King.

“Father, I’m… I’m so very tired.”

“I know Asgore, so am I.”

“I want to go home.”

“That shall come soon enough my son.”

“Be careful what you say there, lad!” a hoarse voice interrupted from somewhere atop.

Both froze dead in their tracks, Asgore frantically looking for the origin of the voice, but to no avail, to his right only lay a precipice down the rocky mountain, broken here and there by patches of pine trees and bushes, to his left lay a myriad of jagged rocks peaked in tufts of icy snow. The King, however, closed his eyes and concentrated.

“Stand and deliver! Your money or your life, beast.”

“Thou art but a single man, and we are two ‘beasts’, surely thou ought to rethink thine tactics.” the King retorted, gazing over to his left patiently.

“Hah! Try again you filthy demon.” the man challenged.

Then, like ghouls emerging from the earth, some twenty-odd figures emerged from behind the boulders and jagged stone carvings, clad in fur and iron, bows drawn to firing position, arrows so sharp they seemed to cut even the glance. Asgore was paralyzed with fear, it was true then! Humans existed and were in fact violent fiends, though he now realized he would not live long enough to tell of this tale. All he could do was stand and watch his own death.

“So be it.” the patriarch stated, resigning to what he had to do.

In what seemed like a fraction of a moment, shorter than one grain of an hourglass, the King swung his left arm from his waist to his chest, and again back to his waist, a blinding turquoise light illuminating his ginger braided hair to reveal an ethereal halberd at the ready, ghostly embers emerging from his irises and palms as he readied for the inevitable attack, and his follow up.

But the attack didn’t come, the white-upon-brown ghosts atop the hillside dared not even flinch as they lay their gaze dead on both of the monsters. They simply stood still, like rocks of immovable granite, carless for even the strongest of earthquakes. Finally, after what seemed to Asgore like an eternity, the hoarse voice cackled from behind the figures, and a further silhouette emerged amongst the men.

“Jethro Dreemurr! Your Highness, I did not fancy seeing you around these here hills so soon!”

“...And I expected more elegance of thou, Morkoff. But I guess that is perhaps a bit much off a man of thine low esteem.” 

And so, the collective of men cackled together, lowering their arms at ease, and the King soon followed, embers dying down as the halberd faded to leave the physical realm, back to the metaphysical. The Prince now stood in awe at the might of his father. Never before he’d seen such ferocity and, what could only be called… determination in his eyes. He’d always been so mild mannered amongst his kind, and with him. Such tranquility in a physique best suited for a warrior-priest, he did not understand at first, but he did now.

“Blizkov!”

“Yes, chief!”

“Sound the horns, my boy. Let the Host know that his Highness, the King of Monsters is on his way as foretold!”

“At once, chief!”

And with that, a low vibrato goat horn echoed through the snow-crested mountaintops, to the far reaches of the land, all the way to the lowest valleys beyond sight, and it was not long till a reply came back echoing through the same crevices and nooks of the skyline.  
“This way, your Highness.” Morkoff gestured ahead, jumping down to the path from the rocks, a wicked smile across his maw. 

“Splendid.” the King soon followed, and so did the Prince. Looking around him to the scruffy and elusive looking men now escorting them, he now shared in the foreboding his father had before him. As he gazed into one of the square-jawed bowman’s eyes, he clutched once more the snail shell on his waist and whispered her name.

\- - -

Furious scribbling had, by now, been replaced by a more meticulous swirl of the feather. In place of the “scritch scritch scritch” it was now a “tap tap tap”, the excess octopus ink being dripped out of the finely-tipped feather Toriel clutched in her hands. Though her study had a window with a quaint view of the remainder of the village, and her Grandmother’s blossoming yard of exotic plants, she voluntarily chose to keep said window shut, to hell with it all! They did deserved her not, grandmother deserved her not! All she cared for was to get her text back to reading condition.

This, in turn, was no easy task. The wet ink and the soggy parchment had all but become a blob of black and yellow by the time she’d gotten a hold of herself and conjured up a kindle to dry it back to any sort of usable condition. “...only… to… then…” Tap tap tap, ink on and ink out. Word by word, she reassembled her manuscript, based in part of her recollection of it and part on letters she could -maybe- make out against the noise of indiscernible black spots on the leaf.

Such was her focus on the task at hand the presence of her tutor, Tamara the Wise, leaning on her door frame, went entirely unnoticed… Or perhaps she simply did not care. The old woman simply watched in pity and let out a heartfelt sigh, as she watched her granddaughter visibly still unnerved at their previous exchange. It was not easy bringing that young lass up. Both her parents had passed not 3 years prior, in what seemed like an unprecedented occurrence. It had not been easy for Tamara to watch her daughter and her husband age at such an accelerated age as to surpass her own, so one could only imagine the confusion in the mind of a young teen like Toriel.

Alas, she could not deviate from her duties to the Kingdom nor kin, as a descendant of The Wise family of boss monsters, it was in their essence to be in tune with magick and the transcendental. The mastery and honing of their craft dated back to long before the written history of monsterdom, but the legends and prophecies still rung true to the date. All events of significance were foretold by Oracles and Enchantresses of her lineage, and, somehow, it all culminated on that feisty young lass sitting stubbornly on her study desk, retracing word by word some mundane text about frogs. Tamara rubbed the patterns and embossings on her tunic, plump and tired fingers gliding over the Deltarune, looking to hide her anxious feelings towards her cherished granddaughter, whom she was starting to suspect did not look up to her.  
Tap tap tap, ink on and ink out. “...earth… and… marsh…” In the kitchen a broth of different herbs, snails and fish boiled in a clay pot, the not-so-appetizing smell filling the log house. Yet still the young to-be enchantress lay before her manuscript, unwinkin and uncaring, lit only by the kindle atop her head.

“Toriel my dear, art thou not hungry?”

“No, Grandmother Tamara.”

“Please my child, just call me Tammie.”

“You are not my mother!” she denied.

She should have known, prophecies also foretold of the stubbornness of the would-be-queen. Tamara knew it quite well that it was her destiny to become Queen, she could simply not connect the dots, the whole path lay before her in her mind, a secret to her and only her. The Oracles only shared their wisdom within their inner circles, much to the dismay of the Royalty. No-one outside of The Wise knew the full extent and details of the Deltarune prophecy, they could only share mild details to assist the King, but not fully disclose them, in fear of breaking the weak balances of the world.

The worst part of it all was that if Toriel’s destiny was in truth that which she imagined, she’d be the last Wise to ever live. As well as the last Monster Queen.

“Thou hath been there for several hours, please my darling, come eat!”

“Worry not, if I don’t complete this text and hand it to Asgore, you’ll never have to feed me again!”

“What is this obsession thou hast with that text? How could thou possibly win over the heart of the Prince with a hastily made piece like the one you have?”

“IT HAS TO! Nothing else will do Grandmother! If he does not recognize my wit and my keen eye how could he ever possibly love me?!”

“Maybe he loveth thou for some other reason, Toriel.”

“What would there be to love about an anomaly like me?!

The tap tap tap stopped altogether, the young monster holding the feather firmly still over her text, a wet drip of ink stuck to its point tenaciously, or perhaps by magick. Silence was such that every crackle of kindle was heard like a reverbing echo through the room.  
“I have heard what the other monsters say, that I am cursed. That my father and mother perished from my curse. That I do not belong here... I am unnatural.” Toriel whimpered, the kindle pulsing ever so slightly with a mix of grief and anger.

Now the old grandmother saw no other choice but to hold her dear youngling in her arms, placing the feather down gently on the ink jar and picking her up onto her lap. Toriel’s head buried firmly on her tutor’s chest with a soft, tearless hiccuping.

“Now my love, why would Asgore care about such inane and slanderous remarks from his subjects. Thou knowest he truly likes thee, does he not?”

“Y-Yes… But I have no clue why.”

“Perhaps because thou art a sensitive and beautiful young woman.”

“S-Stop! It’s not true.”

“But it is… If only thou knew how precious thou truly art… Every single lady in the Kingdom envies thee, my sweetheart…”

The whimpering became quieter.

“They knoweth thou art unlike any other, Toriel The Wise. A young lady of such tender words and bright mind. Thou shall pave the way for countless of our kindren. Believe mine words.”

Toriel’s frail hands, which prior were desperately hanging onto the fabric around her grandmother’s ornate robe now swung behind her chest and pressed. Pressed into a tight embrace. Perhaps, just maybe. She was correct. Maybe the text was not all that important, maybe Asgore would be able to look over her anomalous upbringing and lineage. Maybe she could steal his breath like he stole hers. Just maybe… but before that…

“Can I please finish my text, mom?”

\- - -

Walking out from the bazaar of wares, tents and furnaces that littered the campgrounds of the human’s settlements, Jethro, with Asgore closely behind, entered the courtyard of the Host’s summer dacha, all the while his less-than-delicate escort of huntsmen made sure any onlookers kept their distance. Nestled in a sort of mesa, beneath three towering rocky formations, the human village seemed more like a frontline outpost than a settlement proper, trappers skinned predators, smiths ached away at their anvils and families gathered ‘round their massive bonfire for warmth and fresh soup.  
To say Asgore was awestruck would be an understatement. The humans were so different from what he envisioned. “If monsters could take on such assorted shapes and sizes, what could humans look like”, he imagined. To his surprise, the antagonistic race to his was surprisingly uniform. Smooth skin, hair only on their heads and faces, relatively small sized. Well, small sized compared to his father that is. All the children gathered round him as he followed his father’s steps, and locking eyes with a few of them he could feel in their star-struck glare that same wonder and fear that struck him.

“Please wait here your Highness, I will notify the host.” said Morkoff, as he dashed inside the rather crude looking home of the human Host.

“What now, father?”

“Now, thou learnest.”

Not a turn of an hourglass had passed before Morkoff dashed out of the house, standing in attention with his sabre to his face. From out of the shadow of the house, a rotund 7 feet tall mass of muscle emerged, clad in a polar bear’s pelt and all manners of jewelry on his fingers, hounddog by his side and, as far as Asgore could count, at least three edged weapons hanging around his waist.

The monsters and the humans stood a good 20 paces apart, in what seemed like a showdown from afar, not a word spoken, just an exchange of gazes disturbed only by the faint whispers of the crowd from behind the fence, as well as gossip from the less well-disciplined soldiers.

“Why’d you bring yer Cub, Jethro?” the Host asked, pointing at Asgore, who now sheepishly hid behind his father, peeking like a scared animal.

“Must a father not teach his young his trade, Zvero?” the King retorted.

“Hah! Aye, your Highness. A father must.”

The two approached and exchanged a sincere, firm handshake. The Prince had heard of how handshakes were among human settlers, it was a gesture of mutual respect, but also a tool to try and uncover any trinkets or secrets hidden up one’s sleeves, he now understood perfectly well why his father practiced those with his own guards.

Inside the makeshift dacha were ornaments and trophies of the different corners of the vast land: buffalo heads, tusks, horns, swords, spears and rugs. All strewn around the fireplace on which the two rival leaders exchanged jokes and stories in between discussing their trade deals over mugs of glacier-cooled fresh ale. Asgore dared not come too close lest he disrupt the Host Zvero, but he observed from across the antechamber their mannerisms, his progenitor leant over close to the human to whisper certain sensitive details, or perhaps a dirty joke, followed by a reciprocal gesture from the bald, round ogre-like man. 

Both had a façade of relative relaxation to them, but if one were to look closer, they could observe the tense rubbing of hands and clicking of heels, demonstrating just how delicate the balance between the two factions really were. Smiles and laughter, but a dagger on your belt.

“Say Jethro, my boys have been telling me they’ve run into a bit of a uh… Brigand problem round your turf aye?”

“Well I assure thou, mine Host, our Kingdom takes all precautionary measures to ensure these ill-mannered elements do not extend over our borders. Perhaps thine men have a habit of… dare I say… infringing on our lands?”

“Perhaps, aye. But that’s not the point ye see. I’ve told them not to attack yer boys, I keep my end of the bargain ye see. But one occasion was brought to my attention, my friend.”

“Go on.”

“A few seasons back, I lost nearly an entire party of my boys to what I thought was a Bear, aye? The only few surviving lads told me one monster attacked ‘em, but only one, to which I said ‘bugger off’. We’ve had our run ins, right Jethro, and I know one of yer boys cannot take out a party of mine right?”

“...Yes.”

“Right. Well ye see my friend. A similar occasion happened a few days ago right? One of my best trappers went hunting for game on the Yukon. Ran back here scared shitless, never seen him like that. Told me one monster had killed a human brigand and… uh how do I say this now…”

“Well?”

“Well, this lad told me, this monster… And these are his words and not mine… This monster ‘absorbed’ the poor lads soul. Became like nothing he’d ever seen aye? Couldn’t fathom it.”

Then suddenly silence, the King had been plenty talkative up until then, willing to indulge in Zvero’s questions, but now… Nothing.

“Ye know anything about this, your Highness?”

“No.”  
“Ye sure you’re not hiding some from us?”

“I have nothing to hide Zvero.”

The man chuckled, leaned back on his chair and took a long gulp of what remained on his mug of ale.

“That had better be the case Jethro... It better be the damned case, lad.”

The conversation didn’t return to the same zesty gusto it had before that exchange, Asgore noticed, and although he couldn’t make out what his father and Zvero had said, he could tell it was grave, the tension was much more palpable now. The warm glow of the fireplace lit both their faces and exposed the crevices and bumps of tension rising from their brows. Soon they had wrapped up conversation, exchanged one last cheers and at last the King and Prince were on their way, first down to the Yukon river outpost, then back to the village.

However, they did not clear the antechamber into the courtyard before Zvero yelled across the dacha:

“Safe travels your Highness! I hope our friendship will remain fruitful for generations to come aye?”

Looking back, Asgore and Jethro once more saw that wicked smile across the man’s face, much like Morkoff’s back in the trail. The smile itself had no wickedness to its shape, perhaps only if you looked at it in proportion to the round man’s face, but the monsters could discern something foreboding in that smile, as if the man knew something they did not.

When they left, the sun was but 10 degrees off the horizon and the afternoon glow had bathed the valley below. As soon as word they had cleared camp arrived, Zvero assembled his messengers and asked them to relay an important piece of information to the other camps in the region.

\- - -

To the young Prince, midsummer supper left no lingering impression any longer, it seemed year after year, summer after summer, little changed in the food, environment and people. As custom, it was held in the main square of the village, some 200 paces from the castle’s entrance, stalls were set up all around and the banquet table served enough for more than 500 monsters of all sizes and shapes, and for those who did not have room, they still had their homes to carry all the delicacies to, for a nice celebratory supper. 

But again, little changed every year. Gerson still told high tales of myth and bravery, the King reenacted his encounters with wild animals and dastardly brigands and the Guards stood at attention for all the children to test their ironclad patience. It was now well past midnight, the fires had burnt down and the crowd had mostly scattered to enjoy the shortest night of the year the best way they knew how: in bed, sleeping. But Asgore had but one thing on his mind, the very one thing that’d gotten him out of bed that very morning.

With his father’s permission, he left for his date, sneaking through the backyards and into the tall grass marshlands, up a small creek and left on the pyramid-shaped rock. Right at the tree stump, down the incline and left onto a ledge overlooking the entire valley. There on that ledge was his sweetheart, Toriel, just like he suspected she’d be.

The faint flickering lights of torches one by one dimmed and faded on the village below, and from this vantage point he could also see the distant bonfire of a few scattered nomad bands and scout patrols in the forests beyond, furthermore, the light on his father’s chambers was snuffed dark. Although exhausted from the adventure of the days prior, Asgore still had enough acuity to notice all was not well with his little pumpkin pie.

“Pssst…Tori!” he whispered.  
And there they were, those two deep crimson roses gleamed in the moonlight above, as they first met his gaze jumpily, before turning bright with bliss. She was not close enough for him to be able to discern her fragrance, but his memory kept it fresh in his nostrils, so when she jumped onto a nigh-motherly hug around him, the excitement of memory was replaced by the ecstasy of reality.

“Oh your highness-”

“-Gorey.”

“Gorey… Oh how I missed thine voice.”

They snuggled standing, bathed in one anothers warmth on the now chilly night atop the mountain. The wind had all but subsided and that thin layer of cloud was now like delicate brush strokes across an ample dark, dark blue canvas. They giggled like the two young teens they were, simultaneously utterly ashamed and amused. The callouses on Asgore’s feet mattered not right now, he just wanted to be right there with that girl he liked so much, but to his alarm she suddenly broke off the cradling and said excitedly:

“Oh! Oh! I must show you something my Prince, look!”

Taking him by his hand, they both went closer to the ledge, where tucked under a rock Toriel picked up and unrolled a piece of parchment intricately decorated at the seams and borders with illuminated text. The young lass snapped her fingers and created a kindle just above their heads, not too bright to blind them to the serene darkness of the night, but bright enough to make out all the etchings and drawings so delicately transposed on the manuscript.  
“W-What is this Tori?”

“Read it! Read it!”

“Uhm, o-ok. I have just now, on this quaint midsummer morning, noted the most exceptional of all peculiarities about these little green monsters that live in the bog. Not only do they live their entire early lives under the mantle of this water, only to then migrate to the earth and marsh surrounding it, but they grow legs and “arms” too! Surely this is a scientific discovery of epic proportions, it is for this reason that I - Toriel The Wise - will go down in monster history as one of the greats!”

Asgore was, no doubt, a bit perplexed by what that was meant to be. Was this code of some sort? A riddle to solve? The start of a short story?

“Did you like it Asgore? Did you like my research?” She asked, a spark in her eye gleaming with the intensity of a sun

“Well I uh… I don’t get it. Is this… a joke?” the Prince awkwardly replied, truly unsure of what to make of all this.

Toriel’s smile quickly faded, and before Asgore had any chance to react, a scowl appeared in its place as she rather pitifully started smacking him across the head with her fists. Now the situation had developed from mildly confusing to entirely confusing for the young Prince. Admittedly, Toriel had been his only lady companion so far, and he could in all honesty not make out if this was a Toriel thing, or a ladies thing. It was probably a Toriel thing.

“WHY YOU, YOU LITTLE SCOUNDREL, YOU BRAT! THIS TEXT IS OF THE UTMOST VALUE TO MONSTERKIND! AND YOU CALL IT A JOKE! DAMN YOU, DAMN YOU!”

“Agh! Tori what are you-ACH stop pulling my ears! Stop it that hurts!”

“Why can’t you just love me! I do everything for you! And you just reject me!”

“What are you-OW. What are you talking about?”

That’s when he saw the white glistening of tears streaming down her cheeks. Oh what a sight from a nightmare! He’d brought his love to tears, all because of some text about frogs and legs. She stopped hitting him and simply buried her face in his chest, trying to contain all her distraughtness. He himself could not bear the idea of having hurt his sweetheart. After all those afternoons together, nervously exchanging compliments to one another, picking flowers, hunting snails and pretend dueling it’d come down to this. He’d had his one chance to absolutely win her heart over forever more and he blew it. Fantastic.

“I HATE YOU! I HATE YOU!”

These words, though muffled and hard to make out through the hiccups drove a stake directly through Asgore’s soul and he too, began to tear up. Before he could gather his senses, he too was bawling, head collapsed on Toriel’s back.

“I’m so sorry Tori, please. Please, please forgive me! I’m sorry.” He clutched her robes. No response, only whimpers and hiccups.

“It’s wonderful! I love your writing! You’re creative and I’m a bore like my dad!” Once more, no reply, her grasp around him had tightened with what either seemed like uncontrollable rage, or desperate sorrow.

And then, like rock that had suddenly come loose from a sandal, like a bug that was stuck in his throat, like a butterfly that flew out of his stomach, it came to him. That fleeting thought that time and time again crossed his mind but stopped short of his tongue, those words that are so, oh so much harder to say than “I’m sorry” or “Thank you.” That feeling that’d burned all day long in his heart when he clutched that snail shell, that thought that kept him awake at night. He leaned a little closer to Toriel’s ear, her face still buried deep on his chest, and said:

“I love you, Tori!”

Those words sent a series of vibrations throughout his body and soul like no other sensation he’d experienced before in his life, a pulsating fire that burned brighter than any star and more vibrantly than any kindled flame he’d seen. And in his quivering hands he felt her body tremble aswell. The desperate grapple became softer, as her hands rose to his shoulders and got on her knees. Her crimson roses and fragrance had never been so intense before, hypnotizingly intense, he couldn’t look away from them.

“I-I love you Gorey… Will you be my King?”

“I will only be King if you will be my Queen.”

And at last, the final act of this play had come to pass. With jeweled tears sparkling on their cheeks, their eyes closed, their breathing hastened, and their fingers intertwined. They wrapped their arms around one another and in a grip as tight as their juvenile bodies could, they exchanged the last sacred act of young love, a kiss like no other, an event that for them bore such cosmic, physical and metaphysical significance that an entire star could spark right there, between their souls.

They kissed until they ran out of breath, and then they kissed again. Not a word was said for the remainder of the night, they simply held each other snuggly under the stars as the northern lights danced above them, their white fur patterned with hues of green, yellow and blue. When dawn broke, they still held one another as wife and husband, though they were, of course, too young for such an affair, yet. And so henceforth, every dusk and every dawn was met with jubilation by the two. On sundown they’d kiss, and on sunrise they’d wake up side-by-side. 

And it came to pass that they did become King and Queen, and the whole Kingdom Jubilated on their day of Coronation, and though the future was uncertain, as it usually is, they knew that under that moonlight on that fateful midsummer midnight, they had bonded their mortal bodies and immortal souls for the rest of eternity. 

But the King was afflicted by dreams again, the same dream of gnashing of teeth, the dazzling lights, quiet whimpers and deafening roars. This time he could make out the silhouettes in the dream, and through this he realized that, for better or worse, life would never be as good as it was on that one midsummer midnight. 

Shortly after, the war started.


End file.
